New documentary addresses misunderstandings about Muslims

A new documentary that addresses cultural misunderstandings about Muslims will be shown to high school students in South Australia.

The short film, created by the University of South Australia, features young Muslims discussing their day-to-day experiences and concerns.

It aims to challenge the assumptions that dominate the media and society about Islam and Muslim culture.

The university's director of the International Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding, Professor AbdouMaliq Simone, hopes it will give students a sense of the ordinary among others who "seem different to them".

"These young people have inherited certain kinds of notions about what faith is, about what the right way to do things are," he said.

One of the four young Muslims who feature in the film, Yassir Morsi, says he has confronted racism in Australia.

"When there's a war abroad, or when a suicide bomber happens, and everybody knows you're Muslim or Arab, you're confronted for some unknown reason with the responsibility to either explain your distance to what happened or your familiarity with why it happened," he said.

"In that sense I think that's when Australia's unfortunate racism comes to the fore."

He wants students who watch the documentary to walk away with more questions than they already have.

"For instance, what it may mean to be a minority in Australia, what it may mean to constantly be observed or possibly, is it really as big a problem as they make it out to be?" he said.

The documentary has been sent to all secondary schools in South Australia.

The Christian school St Francis de Sales College in the Adelaide Hills is one of them.

The school's principal, Pam Ronan, says the documentary is very suitable to show young people in schools.

"It was age appropriate, sensitively done, and there was a lovely authenticity about the case studies," she said.

Ms Ronan will be showing it to her year 10, 11 and 12 students at a time, as she puts it, when they are struggling with their own sense of identity and acceptance.

She hopes they will also get a deeper understanding of the contribution Islamic culture makes to Australian society.